Zhou Zishu thought about it for a while. This question was too immense, and had stumped him. Not knowing how to explain it for the moment, he lowered his head to look at that little tyke who was still furrowing his brow like he was troubled to the bones, picked him up by the collar, and dragged him out of the room, saying, “Since you’ve slept so much in the day that it’s left you with fuck-all to do now and unable to sleep, as the stupid and slow bird has to set off first to avoid falling behind, you might as well practice properly. It seems like I haven’t pushed you hard enough, that you still have the energy to continue imagining nonsensical things.”

As he spoke, he grabbed a handful of small pebbles from the ground, bent his fingers and, out of the blue, flicked them at Zhang Chengling. Zhang Chengling was unable to dodge in time; the pebble hit him right in the head, and just as he exclaimed “aiyo”, another pebble had arrived. Left with no choice, he could only scramble away on his hands and knees, while his evil demon of a shifu derided, “In the gongfu I taught you, there isn’t a move called ‘Dog Eats Shit’.”

At this moment, Zhang Chengling did not have time to think, and could only put in his whole effort to counter those small pebbles cascading onto him like a tightly-woven net with no way out. He only let out a sigh of relief when Zhou Zishu had depleted his pebbles, but even before he had finished exhaling that breath, he heard Zhou Zishu say, “Was that thing you performed the Drifting Clouds Nine Palaces Formation? Even a spider’s crawl is more pleasant to look at! The first few steps were still adequately performed, but what were those steps at the end? You stay here, and do it once through from beginning to end. If you make a mistake again, I'll break your damn legs!"

Frightened into extreme wariness, in a manner reminiscent of a baby learning how to walk, Zhang Chengling deeply contemplated each step before he lifted his leg. He was treading more carefully than the crippled old granny, as if he was terrified of stepping on and killing even one ant on the ground. From time to time, he still had to sneak a peek at Zhou Zishu, constantly worried that Zhou Zishu would give him trouble all of a sudden and really break his damn legs.

Zhou Zishu sat down, brooding that this little thing was certainly useless. His chest still felt tight; momentarily unable to hold it back, he turned his head aside and started coughing. An ominous trace of a flush surfaced on his pale side profile. Under the moonlight, it looked rather frightening in its severity.